Sweet Dreams are Made of This
by Monroe-Militia
Summary: When Bass is taken over by the nanotech, he gets a glimpse of what his perfect dream world would be and who would be in it.
1. Chapter 1

Sebastian Monroe woke up to the feeling of warmth against his chest and the light tickle of hair against his face. He nuzzled closer, inhaling the familiar scent.

As he opened his eyes, he lifted his head a little and brought his hand away from Charlie's hip to gently brush the hair back from her neck before pressing his lips against the newly exposed flesh.

Charlie stirred a little and rolled over to look at him with sleepy eyes, a lazy smile on her lips.

He smiled back then pressed his lips to her forehead before she snuggled up closer.

Not long after, her steady, rhythmic, breathing gave away that she had already fallen back asleep. He smiled a little to himself as he looked down at her before he too shut his eyes.

* * *

When Bass woke up for the second time, he found the other side of the bed already empty.

That seemed strange, so he dragged himself out of bed and walked into the living room, rubbing at his eyes tiredly as he walked out in just his boxers.

"About time that you got up," Charlie commented as she walked over to him.

"I almost missed you apparently," Bass commented.

One of his hands grabbed hers and pulled her closer, while the other moved to the small of her back as he drew her in for a good morning kiss.

"You sure, did," Charlie responded. "I'm just on my way out."

"Can't you be late?" Bass asked in a rumbling growl.

"I already am late," Charlie responded in a teasing tone. "And it's your family that I'm meeting… About your birthday."

"Do I really need another big surprise party?" Bass questioned in a playfully complaining tone. "Do you know what would be a real surprise? If for once my mom didn't throw me a surprise party, or at least had it not on my actual birthday… Three months late, now that would be a real surprise party."

"Oh come on, you know you like the attention," Charlie pointed out with a wide grin.

"True," Bass agreed as he moved a step closer to her, his hands moving to grab onto her hips. "But I also like this attention too."

Charlie laughed loudly before she brought her lips back to his. "I'll be back later. Try to survive without me."

"I can try," he told her. "But if you come back to find my dead body, then that's on you."

She shot him one last grin and rolled her eyes before heading out the door.

* * *

Once she was gone, Bass made his way to the kitchen in search of something to eat. He didn't feel much like bothering to make anything difficult, so he just popped some Eggos into the toaster. As they toasted he made his way to the fridge and took a large chug out of a jug of orange juice before he grabbed the maple syrup, along with the juice, and moved them over to the kitchen counter.

He had the whole day ahead of him and a whole lot of nothing to do, so he took his breakfast into the living room and turned on the TV as he ate. He flipped through the channels until he found an action movie that was just starting. He was pretty sure that he'd seen it before, but figured that there probably wouldn't be anything better on during a Saturday morning, so he left it on as he began to eat.

* * *

"You look like you've had a productive day," Charlie commented with a smirk when she came home and found him in the living room, still on the couch with a beer in hand. He was caught up in watching the ending of the second sequel to the action movie.

He set his drink down and then turned around to look at her. She quickly hid something behind her back as she continued to stand behind the couch, keeping her body blocking his view of what was in her one hand as she roughly hit him in the shoulder with the other.

"Don't look!" She told him in a tone that would have been a lot more threatening if she didn't have a big grin plastered on her lips.

Bass continued to stare at her with a wide smile for several seconds then looked her up and down one last time before he finally turned his gaze back towards the TV screen. His attention, however, still remained primarily on her.

"Oh sure, you abandon me all day and now I'm not even allowed to look at you," he teased, calling after her as she left the room to go hide whatever had been behind her back. "I'm starting to feel a little abused."

"You're right. You're just a sad, neglected puppy, aren't you?" She taunted back playfully as she returned to the room.

"You think that you're so funny, don't you?" He challenged as he twisted in his seat to look back at her once again.

"You know I am," she responded, leaning against the edge of the couch.

A shriek of laughter emerged from her throat as he suddenly grabbed her waist and pulled her over the back of the couch. As he fell back into his seat, she landed on top of him. His arms were wrapped around her waist and she was still laughing as her head fell back onto his shoulder. He had to grin at her reaction.

"So, do I even get a hint about tomorrow?" He asked, his voice husky in her ear.

"It's a surprise," she told him in an amused tone. "That's kind of the idea of a surprise party."

"An _annual_ surprise party," Bass corrected.

"That just means that you don't have to plan your own party," she pointed out. "…So is this all you did all day? Sat at home watching movies?"

Since Charlie had come home, Bass had all but forgotten about the movie he'd been watching.

"I also worked on my surprised face," he joked. "It's getting so good that I should copyright it."

"Maybe, you should try a new one this time," she commented. "Change things up."

He let out a low chuckle at that before pointing out, "You know, I could just call Miles or Cyn or Angie to tell me."

"We both know that Miles avoids us and our planning at all costs, with the rare exception of submitting the occasional suggestion," Charlie pointed out. "So you wouldn't be able to get much out of him. And neither of your sisters is going to give you any information without some major bribing."

He let out an exaggerated sigh before he told her, "You're probably right."

"You know I'm right," Charlie told him before turning her head to kiss him.

"How in the hell did I get lucky enough to get you?" He asked, more to himself than to her.

"I ask myself that every day," she told him with a laugh.

"And yet I'm the self-obsessed one in this relationship," he commented with a grin.

"We're both lucky," she pointed out in a slightly more serious tone before a smirk crossed her lips. "And your title as the self-obsessed one is well-earned. You take more time than me to get ready in the morning because you're so busy staring at yourself in the mirror."

"And if I looked like you, I'd spend all day staring at any and every reflective surface," he informed her.

"And we'd both look beyond self-obsessed dating someone who looks exactly like us," Charlie responded.

Bass shifted a little, sliding a hand up under her shirt.

"Don't," she warned, but it was already too late.

"I bet that I can make you tell me something now," he said into her ear as he began to tickle her side.

Charlie began to laugh as she tried to shift out of his grip with no success. He only started tickling her harder, causing her to quickly jerk in his grasp. As she did so, she elbowed him in the gut, which effectively stopped him.

He quickly released his grasp on her, moving one hand over to where he had been elbowed. He let out a loud groan, pretending to be in more pain than he really was.

"You are such a faker," she accused, sitting up and turning her body towards him.

Bass leaned forward, bringing his mouth to hers, his lips already parted. Charlie kissed him back passionately, bringing a hand to the back of his head to pull him closer as she opened her mouth to grant him further access.

"I think you're trying to distract me," Bass murmured against her lips as his hands found their way to her hips.

"I think you like it," she purred back at him before her teeth began to tug lightly on his bottom lip as her hands slid down the back of his shirt.

"And I think that you're right again," he responded.

Before she had the opportunity to respond, he pressed his mouth back against hers and she could feel his lips quirking up into a smile.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! :) Thanks for reading!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm telling you that there is something off about him," Miles hissed out, struggling to keep his voice quiet so that their fighting wouldn't be overheard.

"I don't see it," Rachel insisted. "He seems like the same arrogant bastard to me."

"Rachel, please," Miles said in a pleading tone. "I am begging you. There is something wrong with him."

"There's always something wrong with him," she interjected.

"Something else. I don't even really know how to describe it," he struggled to explain. "I've known Bass for my whole life and I am telling you that whatever that thing is, it is not him. It's just some kind of copy. And, yes, I realize how crazy I sound right now."

"You really think that the nanites took over Monroe?" Rachel questioned, seeming reluctant to accept the theory.

"Yes!" Miles said, getting the slightest bit of relief from the fact that she finally seemed to be beginning to understand what he had been trying to explain to her for the last ten minutes. "They already did it to Aaron once."

"Even if what you're suggesting is true, which I'm not necessarily agreeing that it is," Rachel began to respond, choosing her words carefully as she did so. "What can we even do about it?"

* * *

Bass woke up on his birthday to find Charlie dancing through the room to the faint sound of the radio coming from the kitchen as she picked out clothes for the day and threw them down onto the foot of her side of the bed.

As he sat up, he questioned, "Babe? Why does it smell like you're trying to burn the house down?"

She turned around as he began to stand up and told him, "No, don't get up! I'm making you breakfast in bed."

"No offence, but it smells more like you're burning breakfast to me," he responded as he began to head for the bedroom door.

He could hear her footsteps behind him as she insisted, "I only left it alone for like two minutes, I swear."

"Yes, but we both know how well it goes when you try to cook," he pointed out as he turned into the kitchen.

He instantly spotted the source of the smell, a frying pan that was letting off smoke, so he quickly turned the stove off. When he looked inside, he couldn't even tell what she had been attempting to make since it was so blackened and burnt.

"I'd try and eat this to make you feel better, but I'm honestly not sure that it's even edible," he told her.

She was looking pretty defeated, so he took a step closer to her and wrapped his arms around her waist before kissing her on the top of the head.

"I love you, Charlie. But you can't cook to save your life," he commented with a chuckle.

A second passed before she pulled back from him with a big grin on her face.

He turned and threw out what he could of her attempt at breakfast before he tossed the pan into the sink. He figured that he could try and scrape off the rest of the charred and blackened remains of her cooking later.

When he turned back around, she was dumping the contents of a box of Pop Tarts out onto the kitchen table with a triumphant smile.

"There," she told him. "Your birthday feast."

He let out a laugh as he told her, "It's perfect."

* * *

As they got into the car a while later, Bass joked, "I wonder where we're going."

"Hey, your mom thinks that I'm some kind of scheming genius tricking you every year," Charlie told him with a grin.

"My mom is also very gullible," he retorted.

"And it's cute that you pretend to be surprised for her every year."

* * *

When they arrived at Bass's parents' house, Charlie turned and asked him, "You've got your surprised face ready?"

"I always do."

"Then let's go."

She gave him a quick kiss before getting out of the car.

* * *

When they opened the door, Connor was already walking through the middle of the room with a bottle of water in hand.

"Surprise," he mumbled sarcastically as he turned to head for the back door.

Bass and Charlie both followed him.

"They're outside... I know, shocking," Connor commented as they walked through the door.

"Way to ruin the surprise for your grandmother, Connor," his grandfather commented once they were outside.

"You're right, my bad," Connor retorted just as sarcastically as he had spoken to his father. "Excuse me for going to get a drink for the pregnant girl... Besides, do you really think that he would have been surprised either way?"

With that Connor walked over to his girlfriend and handed her the water bottle that he had been carrying.

As Bass watched with a grin, Charlie whispered to him, "You look like you were actually surprised for once."

"He's right, Connor," Miles piped up with a smirk. "You ruined everything. We should probably just cancel the whole party now."

"I agree. You should just go home, Miles," Bass taunted his friend. "Who even invited you?"

"I wouldn't have made the cut if everyone else you knew wasn't already here," Miles shot back.

Miles may have been exaggerating a little, but it was actually pretty close to the truth. Both Bass's and Charlie's families were there along with Jeremy, Duncan, and Miles' girlfriend, Nora.

"That's not true," Connor pointed out with a smirk. "Mom's not here. I'm pretty sure that she's pretending that she was never invited."

"Or maybe she's just pretending you were never born," Miles added helpfully. "Either way."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to samanthalininger, JM2788, perfectmanhatten, and IceonFire7 for reviewing the first chapter! :)  
**


	3. Chapter 3

"Have you noticed anything weird about Bass lately?" Miles asked as he watched to make sure that the man was nowhere in sight.

"What do you mean?" Charlie questioned. "Isn't he always a little weird?"

"I mean different weird," Miles said with a sigh.

"Mom told me that you think that the nanites got to him, but I don't know," she admitted with a shrug. "Why would they have taken him over if they're not doing anything with him?"

"I don't know," he responded in an exasperated tone. "Maybe they're trying to collect information... I don't know why they're doing it, I just know that there's something really off about him lately and no one else seems to be able to see it."

Charlie paused to think back on Bass's behaviour over the last few days, really searching for anything off or different about it.

"I wouldn't have noticed anything off if you weren't so convinced," Charlie admitted. "But since you're saying that, I guess he might have been acting a little differently the last couple of days."

There was nothing big or too noticeably out of the ordinary. If the nanites really had taken over him, then they were pretending to be him pretty convincingly. She guessed that would make sense if they were inside his head. Still, even after all that she knew about how close Bass and Miles had been she was impressed that Miles had been able to see it.

The only difference that Charlie could think of was the looks. Since travelling together alone, they had developed a way of kind of communicating with a quick exchanged glance. It wasn't that they hadn't shared any glances in the last couple of days- They had -But now that she really thought about it, there was something a little bit off about the exchanges. It was almost as if the looks were still there, but only as a mask with something empty behind them.

"Alright, so maybe I believe you," Charlie admitted. "Then what's the plan?"

* * *

Bass smiled to himself as he watched Charlie, on the other side of the yard, laughing at something that Miles had said.

"When are you going to get it over with and propose to her?" Cynthia asked as she walked up beside her brother. "You can barely keep your eyes off of her still."

"Still?" Bass questioned as he turned to look at her. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

He chose to ignore her first question.

"When you two first got together, me and Angie had a bet about how long you'd last," she admitted.

"And I'm just hearing about this now?" He asked before taking a sip of his beer. "So how long did you two bet on?"

"I said three weeks," Cynthia told him.

"Oh, really?" He asked incredulously. "Three weeks? That's nice."

"It is compared to Angie's bet," she told him. "She bet on less than a week."

Bass shook his head in disbelief.

"Remind me to kick her ass later," he told her. "…Remind me to kick _your_ ass later."

"I think I'll pass on that," Cynthia responded with a laugh. "You still didn't answer my question."

"I know," he insisted. "That was intentional."

"So was me bringing it back up. Seriously, why haven't you proposed to her yet?"

"I'm not answering that."

"Because you have no answer, right?" She challenged. "Fine, I'll just go start asking Miles and Charlie about it… Unless you want to give me an answer."

"Don't you dare," he warned her.

"Then just tell me one thing," she requested. "Are you ever going to propose to her?"

"Maybe?" He said with a small laugh.

"Oh my god, are you blushing?"

"No."

"Yes, you are," Cynthia insisted.

"Shut up." He told her. "I don't blush."

"Hey, Angie," his sister called out. "Bass is blushing, isn't he?"

"Like a bride on her wedding day," Angela responded.

Cynthia turned to her brother with a grin, "Speaking of brides."

"Nope," he told her. "Not a word. You said that you'd stop if I answered one question."

"You said maybe," she pointed out. "That's a terrible answer."

"Alright, that's it," Bass said. "I'm done. I'm walking away now."

"Where? Over to Charlie? Feel free to trip and land on your knees in front of her," Cynthia told him. "Maybe pull a ring out of thin air."

He turned and glared at her over his shoulder before continuing to walk away from her.

* * *

Bass stopped next to his son and asked, "Did you know about your aunts' bet on how long me and Charlie would last?"

"Yeah," Connor responded. "Miles made a hundred bucks when you two lasted over a month."

"Of course he was in on it," Bass said with a small chuckle. "So are they on you to propose to Natalie?"

"No. Why?" Connor questioned as he turned to look at his father.

"Unbelievable," Bass muttered. "You're the one with the knocked up girlfriend and I'm the one they're trying to get to propose."

"But you're too old to have a girlfriend," Connor pointed out with a smirk. "And maybe Charlie's pregnant, but you just don't know it yet. Could be why they're after you."

"No, I'd know if Charlie was pregnant," Bass insisted as he thoughtfully watched her as she excitedly told Nora something.

"Are you sure?" Connor asked. "Have you seen her drinking lately?"

Bass mulled it over for in his head. His son did have a point. He couldn't remember the last time that he's seen Charlie drink something alcoholic. Maybe there was some logic to his son's theory after all.

* * *

Bass walked up behind his girlfriend and wrapped his arms around her waist as he murmured into her ear, "Can I talk to you for a minute inside?"

She turned around in his hold and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck as she grinned and told him, "I guess I could talk to you. I mean, it is your birthday, right?"

* * *

Once they were alone in the kitchen, Charlie hopped up to sit on the counter before asking, "What did you want to talk about?"

Bass hesitated for a moment before telling her, "This is probably going to sound crazy..."

"What?" She asked with a smile.

There was a short pause before he let out a nervous laugh and asked, "Are you pregnant?"

"How did you figure that out?" Charlie asked, much to his surprise.

"I didn't," he responded. "Connor did from something Cyn said."

"I didn't tell your sister," she told him. "I was going to tell you first tonight."

"So you're really pregnant?" Bass asked with a grin.

She bit down on her lip to hold back a smile as she nodded her head.

Bass took a few steps forward to close the distance between them as he pulled her in for a kiss.

Charlie had just wrapped her legs around his waist when a voice interrupted them.

"This is a kitchen, Sebastian, not a bedroom."

Charlie's legs dropped to his sides as Bass turned around to face his mother.

"Charlie's pregnant, Mom," he told her with a wide grin.

"Well, that's great for you two, but it doesn't mean that you need to try for another one on my counter," she told him.

Charlie's arms wrapped over his shoulders as she laughed into his neck while Bass's mother turned back out of the room.

"You realize that she's going to go tell everyone, right?" Bass asked.

"And whose fault is that?" Charlie teased.

"Come on, we'd better get back outside," he told her as he grabbed her legs and lifted her off the counter.

She let out a laugh as she wrapped her arms tighter around his chest.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to IceonFire7, samanthalininger, foreverVam, Daedalos, and perfectmanhatten for reviewing the second chapter :)  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Bass, or the thing that was wearing his face at the moment, let out a sadistic laugh.

"Did you really think that it would be that easy, Miles?" It asked. "Did you _really_ think that you could throw together a half-thought through plan to hit us over the head and that we would just disappear?"

"Well I was hoping," Miles admitted with an innocent shrug.

"Oh, Miles. Always with the humour," the nanites commented. "Do you think that hides how broken you are from the rest of the world?"

"If you're going to kill me, then just shut up and kill me," Miles insisted.

Charlie didn't look impressed with Miles' encouraging it to kill him. She purposely remained where she had already been standing, a fair distance away from Bass's body, as she shot her uncle a thorough glare.

* * *

"Put me down," Charlie ordered.

"What's the magic words?" Bass asked her.

"Please?" She asked as her grinning face appeared in his peripheral vision.

"Nope. That's not it," he insisted.

"You're so hot that I can barely control myself from tearing my clothes off right now?" Charlie tried again.

"That'll do," Bass told her with a grin.

Charlie tightened her grip on his chest as she moved to kiss him.

Bass turned his head to give her a quick kiss back, which quickly began to escalate and ended up getting quite drawn out.

"You two realize how disgusting you are, right?" Danny, who had been standing there throughout the entire conversation, asked.

Charlie pulled her lips away with a laugh and Bass set her down on the ground.

"You are so ungrateful," she accused her brother. "I just lied to my boyfriend's face so that he'd let me down to hug you."

"Hold on. Lied?" Bass asked as he grabbed her around the waist from behind and pulled her to him.

"I'm actually not having that tough of a time keeping my clothes on in front of both of our families," Charlie admitted as she turned in his hold so that their chests were touching. She offered him a small smile. "But I love you."

Bass grinned as he craned his neck down to kiss her again. His hands moved from her waist to grab hers and he intertwined their fingers together.

"I love you too."

"_So _disgusting," Danny insisted.

"Danny, wait!" Charlie demanded urgently as her brother turned to walk away. "You forgot your hug after all that I went through for you!"

Bass laughed as he let go of Charlie and she immediately went barrelling at her brother, enthusiastically wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

* * *

"What the hell do you want from Monroe?" Rachel demanded.

Nanite Bass paused for a moment before letting out a laugh that didn't sound quite right.

"You're right. What could we possibly want out of the head of General Sebastian Monroe?" They asked. "We've already told you, Rachel. We want to fix humans. We want to lead your species to greatness. Sebastian Monroe is a wealth of knowledge on how to lead. We want to know how to convince others to follow us willingly."

Rachel was horrified into silence. It was bad enough that they were planning on trying to take over humans completely. It was even worse that they were planning on using Monroe's methods to do so.

"We thought that it would be more difficult to get access to the parts of Sebastian's head that we need, but the truth is that he's even more broken on the inside than you are, Miles," they commented.

For once Miles remained silent, although his eyes were shooting daggers.

"Aaron had some fight in him. He tried to escape the beautiful dream world we put him in and fought to remember. He wondered which was the dream world and which was the real one as we struggled to keep him contained," they continued. "Sebastian accepted the world that we put him into far too easily. It's pathetic, really. He's clinging onto the world that we gave him for dear life. And you want us to take that away from him? What kind of friends does that make you?"

* * *

"How long did you know?" Cynthia asked her brother. "Did you seriously let me bother you about proposing for that entire conversation without even dropping a hint about Charlie's pregnancy?"

"I didn't know then," Bass admitted. "I just found out in the kitchen barely ten minutes ago."

"Well come here," Cynthia insisted as she stretched out her arms.

"I'm not a hugger," Bass protested weakly.

"Shut up. Yes, you are," his sister insisted before wrapping her arms around him.

Bass hugged his sister tightly back and let out a laugh as he heard her ask, "So now are you going to propose?"

* * *

"I think that we should play a game," the nanites suggested as a smirk crossed Bass's features.

"How about we don't," Miles countered.

"Play the game and I'll give you your friend back," they offered in a tone that sounded much more like a threat than a gift. "We already have the information that we need from him and keeping him in his dream world is growing tedious anyways..."

They paused for a moment as they looked around the room before their gaze settled on Charlie.

"Charlotte, you've been awfully quiet. How would you like to play?"

Charlie felt bile rise in her throat at the sound of the nanites calling her 'Charlotte', especially while they were wearing Bass's face. She took a deep swallow before answering them in a voice that came out shakier than she would have preferred.

"What kind of game?"

"Charlie, don't!" Rachel called out.

She was horrified at the idea that Charlie was considering a game that might end in Rachel losing her other child to Sebastian Monroe as well.

"A guessing game," they responded. "We want you to guess what Sebastian's dream world is."

"Huh?" Miles asked in complete surprise.

"We're curious," they insisted. "We want to hear her guess."

There was a brief silence before Rachel spoke up. "He's probably dreaming that he has the republic back with Connor next to him on one side and Miles on the other."

"Is that what you think, Charlotte?"

Charlie couldn't bear to look into the eyes of the things controlling Bass as she shifted from foot to foot.

How was she supposed to know what Bass's dream world was like? She didn't know him that well. No one really did but Miles. So why weren't they asking him?

"I don't know," Charlie admitted.

"Guess." They insisted, using their best General Monroe impression.

"Why are you asking me?" She demanded. "I _don't_ know. He's probably imagining somewhere with Connor and Emma and Miles."

A sadistic smirk crossed Bass's features.

"Well was she right?" Miles finally questioned after a long, drawn out silence.

"We didn't say that she had to be right. We just said that she had to guess."

With that, Bass's entire body went limp and he fell to the ground in a heap. At the same time, a swarm of fireflies appeared in the room out of seemingly nowhere. They hovered over his body for a moment before they disappeared out of the open door.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A ginormous thanks goes out to JM2788 and Daedalos for being amazing and reviewing last chapter! :)  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Bass's eyes opened and he sat up. His first reaction was to automatically search for Charlie, only to find her looking over at him with the same nervous look that Miles and Rachel were giving him. Reality began to sink back in and he realized that, although this might be Charlie that he was looking at, it definitely wasn't his Charlie... He didn't even have a Charlie.

If this was reality, then that meant that almost all of those people who he had been so convinced that he'd just been with were really gone. He was losing them again, all at once, and it was too much.

Miles watched as Bass's facial expression fell and transformed into a look that he knew too well.

"No," Bass insisted weakly before he began to shake his head. "_No_."

He leaned forward and his head fell into his hands, which ran over his face and through his hair as he continued to shake his head.

"Bass?" Miles asked a little uneasily. "Are you good?"

When Bass looked back up again there were tears pooled in his eyes. He most definitely was not good.

"I can't do this," he told his friend, staring straight at him. "I can't lose them. Not again, Miles. I can't lose them again."

"Shit," Miles exhaled as he began to move towards his collapsed friends.

"I can't have my baby sisters taken away from me. Not again," Bass continued. "Miles, I got to see them have the chance to grow up. And now they're gone. _Again._"

Rachel felt uncomfortable watching Bass like this. It was a lot more difficult to think of him as the heartless monster who had taken her son and the father of her children away from her while seeing him in such an overwhelmingly emotional state. It was almost scarier to her knowing that he still had emotions like this than believing that he felt nothing.

Rachel wrapped her arms around herself, grabbing onto her elbows and pulling them close as she turned to walk away.

Charlie turned and watched her mother go before glancing back over at where Bass was sitting, now with Miles beside him, on the ground. She hesitated for a moment longer before turning to follow her mother, feeling like she was intruding on a moment that she shouldn't be. This was more than walking in on a personal moment and she doubted that Bass wanted her there witnessing his breakdown.

Miles reached over and grabbed Bass's gun away from him, figuring that he shouldn't be around weapons at the moment, especially after what had happened the last time that he had lost his family.

"My whole family was alive again. Jeremy too… And Nora… Emma… Duncan… Danny and Ben. None of them were dead," Bass continued. "Things were normal. More than that. Things were good. Connor was there too. He was happy. He had a pregnant girlfriend… And I hadn't messed everything up... I was happy, Miles. I didn't want to wake up. Now I have nothing... I have _no one_."

Miles let out a small sigh before turning and telling him, "You've still got me, remember?"

"Yeah, that's a joke," Bass responded, swiping a little at his eyes in a futile attempt to dry the tears off of his face. It didn't really matter anyways; it wasn't like Miles hadn't seen him cry before.

"In case you haven't noticed, you do," Miles insisted. "I don't admit that, but I know that you know that. No matter what, I can't get rid of you."

"Nice. That makes me feel a lot better, Miles," Bass told him dryly. "Good to know I'm like a fungus that you can't get rid of."

"I haven't exactly been trying to lately, have I?" Miles questioned.

* * *

Bass didn't get even the slightest bit of sleep until the next day when he drank until he passed out. It wasn't until then that Miles left his side. After all, there was no way that Miles was going to leave him alone after he had lost everything again. After it had almost been too much for Bass when he had lost his family last time, without other people piled onto that loss, Miles was planning on keeping a close watch on him.

Once Bass was passed out, Miles decided that he'd better get some sleep himself. He did have a plan though; a plan to try to help not only Bass, but Charlie as well.

For the most part, Charlie had covered up her pain over what had happened with Jason in Austin pretty well while they had still been fighting the Patriots. She'd still had some drive then. She'd had a distraction that she could throw herself into in order to keep her mind off of what she had done as much as possible. Since they'd defeated the Patriots and things had settled down though, it had become clear that it was paining her even more once again.

It wasn't that she didn't hide it well; she certainly did put on a good front. It's just that Miles was very familiar with putting on a front of being alright when you weren't. He'd been doing it for years and he could see it in his niece that she was hurting.

Miles wasn't exactly a fan of sitting around anyways and he knew that what Bass and Charlie both needed was a purpose. They needed something to keep them going and that was exactly what he had planned for them.

* * *

Bass woke up looking just as terrible as he had before falling asleep.

"What the hell are you smirking about?" He grumbled over to his friend as he sat up.

"I know you. You need two things right now," Miles commented. "A mission and hope."

"That's great, Miles," Bass interrupted. "So, what? Are you going to write me some heartfelt poetry that'll help give me hope for the future? And what? Is my mission in life going to be to try and coexist with Rachel? No thanks."

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of going to go find your kid," Miles corrected. "I don't really do sappy poetry. I thought that you'd know that by know."

"And how do you expect us to find him?" Bass asked in an annoyed tone. "We have no idea where to even look. Connor could be anywhere. And even if we do find him, that doesn't mean that he's going to want to have anything to do with me."

"You're right, we don't know where to look," Miles agreed. "That's why we're going to look everywhere until we find him. And, when we do, we're going to make him listen to you."

Bass let out a weak laugh before resuming his drinking from the day before. Finally, he questioned, "Did you clear all this with Rachel?"

"Not yet," Miles admitted. "But we're going. Charlie and Rachel too. I'll worry about figuring out how to convince Rachel if she doesn't want to go. You worry about not drinking yourself to death before we leave."

"That coming from you," Bass muttered under his breath before downing another swig of whiskey.

He wasn't entirely sure that he cared if he drank himself to death or not.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to Siamshipper17, JM2788, revo, The Insane Lover, scifigirl10, Hollywoodlove09, and the anonymous guests for reviewing last chapter! :)  
**


	6. Chapter 6

Bass had barely managed to sleep the night before, but it was still a disappointment when he woke up, expecting a warm bed, only to find himself struck by reality all over again when he found himself lying on the cold, hard ground. He slowly sat up, groaning to himself as he moved and felt a sudden feeling of sickness overtake him.

"What are you, a frat-girl at her first party?" Miles joked as he walked in the room to find Bass emptying the, mostly alcoholic, contents of his stomach.

Bass finished retching before glaring up at his friend. Although Miles' tone had come off light, Bass knew that there was an underlying unease. He hated feeling like Miles was walking on footsteps around him. Miles was his only constant at that point, but even he wasn't fully there for him. Things were so different between them these days and that pain came back all over again, but he struggled to push it back. He had enough pain and loss to deal with without worrying about losing shreds of what he still had at least partially left.

"Hungry?" Miles questioned with a wavering smirk.

"Unless you want to watch me throw up all over again, then I advise you don't talk about food," Bass warned him.

"Alright, your call," Miles responded with a shrug. "Grab your crap, everyone else is ready to go."

He wasn't thrilled that Charlie and Bass both were refusing to eat, but he figured that Bass at least had the excuse of a massive hangover. Charlie, on the other hand, had been barely eating since she'd had to take out Jason back in Austin. Sure, she would nibble at whatever food she was given in order to try to keep up appearances, but only enough that she could keep people from bothering her about her lack of appetite.

* * *

Bass came out a few minutes after Miles did, not looking a whole lot better than he had the day before. His appearance was still disheveled, but he seemed perfectly indifferent to how he looked. As he moved, his bloodshot eyes were pointing daggers at Rachel, as if daring her to try to get on his bad-side while he was already in a bad enough mood.

* * *

Charlie had been trying to ignore the feeling of eyes on her for the last several minutes, but the feeling of Bass's scrutinizing gaze on her was unignorable, like a fresh, itching mosquito bite. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore and turned to look over at him expectantly. Even after doing so, she couldn't tell if he was staring at her or just staring off into nowhere, trapped in a world in his mind in a whole new way.

He continued to watch her, studying the furrow in her brow that had grown so familiar to him. He wondered whether it would still be familiar to him without the nanite-induced memories of another version of her implanted in his mind.

Charlie dropped her gaze, but could still feel his eyes on her until, finally, she looked back up and cleared her throat. It concerned her that he was acting stranger now than the imposter version of him had been for days.

He blinked slowly, then a couple of times more, much quicker, as if he were coming out of a daze. He remained silent, his face revealing nothing, as he turned to direct his gaze over the side of the wagon instead.

He stayed like that, silently, for he wasn't sure how long. As he did, his mind focused back on replaying the memories, which he should have been trying to forget instead, before finally he spoke up for the first time since they had departed.

"I miss air-conditioning."

"Don't we all."

Miles knew that there were things his friend missed much more, people he missed much more, but was relieved to see a bit of humour in his friend who had been staring into nowhere with dead eyes for hours on end. Unfortunately for him, the moment was short-lived and it was clear that his friend had exhausted his conversational skills for the time being.

* * *

They stopped for a break to eat and Miles was less than impressed when the only one who seemed to be even remotely interested in the food that Charlie had hunted down was Rachel.

Charlie herself was, as per usual, picking at it just enough to keep up the appearances of eating regularly. Meanwhile, Bass was just staring down at his food with a look Miles remembered from shortly after the blackout when Bass had complained at every single meal about how there was no way that he was actually going to eat whatever small animal they had hunted down that day. In the end, he'd always eaten it anyways, but Miles was growing increasingly impatient this time. He was just about to threaten the other man, when he looked up from his meal and turned his attention to the Matheson who had captured it.

"I think I'd rather go back and try your nanite cooking," he mumbled under his breath before giving in and lifting the meat, which's source he would rather not dwell on, to his lips.

A second passed before realization crossed Charlie's features and she turned to him with a look of confusion and asked him, "What do you mean my nanite cooking?"

The food which he had, oh so reluctantly, been nibbling at before suddenly became infinitely captivating to Bass as he continued to focus his attention solely on it, rather than the question he had just been asked.

"Why was nanite me cooking for you?" Charlie questioned, with an edge to her voice this time.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! I'm going to try to have the next chapter up soon (and maybe have it be longer, but we'll see how that goes...). And another giant thanks goes out to RevolutionReader, Hollywoodlove09, LemonSupreme, crschuetz, wildirish, JM2788, 4ever-write, and Pyre13 for reviewing last chapter! :)**


	7. Chapter 7

_"Why was nanite me cooking for you?" Charlie questioned, with an edge to her voice this time._

Bass knew that he had messed up and was convinced that there was no right response to that. Still, he had to internally flinch at his choice of response immediately after he told her, "I'm not sure it could really be called cooking, so much as it was trying to burn our apartment down." He wished that he hadn't said anything. He really had not meant to reveal that they had lived together in his nanite-induced dream world.

There was a brief uncomfortable silence before Miles turned to his niece and commented, "Well, I guess we know why the nanites wanted you to guess what his dream world was." It was clear that he had been going for amused, but somehow his voice had ended up with an edge to it that couldn't be ignored.

Charlie glared back at her uncle before walking off to leave the two men alone. As she was going, Bass was sure that he should stop talking and yet words kept coming out as he looked over at Miles and desperately tried to make the situation less uncomfortable by asking, "Dude, do you remember Pop Tarts? We ended up eating those after nano Charlie burnt the hell out of whatever she was trying to make... I swear she made you look like you were a good cook."

Miles stood in silence for a moment before turning to walk away. Bass figured that having Miles just walk away and not yell at him for the dream world that he had been trapped in was the best that he really could have hoped for anyways.

* * *

The wagon ride was no less uncomfortable after that revelation. Bass could feel Rachel's accusing glare on him, even as he tried to avoid looking in her direction. She clearly was not pleased with the idea of Bass being involved with her daughter, even in an imaginary world that he had no control over. She was by no means Bass's biggest concern, but eventually he found himself unable to keep from saying anything for any longer.

Although he was hoping to ease the tension on the wagon, rather than increase it, he still found himself glaring daggers over at Rachel as he insisted, "It's not like I asked to be taken over by your damn robots." Rachel said nothing, but it was clear by her facial expression that she had little to no sympathy for him since finding out about his fake relationship with her daughter. He turned his focus over to Charlie instead, who was staring out over the side of the wagon in an attempt to avoid meeting his gaze at all costs, as he added, "There's not exactly many options around here. You were a better option than Rachel. That's it. If we were in New Vegas, I probably would have thought I was living with Duncan."

He wasn't entirely certain that it was true, but he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince her. He hadn't felt anything for Charlie before the nanites had taken over him, or at least not any feelings that he had been willing to admit to himself, but things had gotten much more complicated since he had been put in a situation where he had discovered just what being with her could be like in a perfect world. Still, he wasn't sure why _she_ had been the girl that the nanites had chosen to put him with. After all, Duncan and Emma had both been alive and well in that world. So why the hell had he been in love with Charlie instead of them?

Bass mentally scolded himself as he corrected that to nanite Charlie. He really needed to stop thinking about them as the same person. It was already becoming a problem for him.

The silence dragged on for an uncomfortably long amount of time before Charlie finally dropped the charade of being infinitely interested in staring out at a landscape that was barely changing and turned to look over at him. He was taken by surprise when, instead of making some sort of snippy comment, she asked, "What are Pop Tarts?" Clearly she had still been listening as she had been walking away earlier.

Bass held back a laugh as he told her, "Food."

"No, they aren't," Miles immediately argued.

"What are you talking about?" Bass questioned. "We lived off of those things for like three months."

"Exactly and now even thinking about them is disgusting," Miles retorted.

Bass muttered something under his breath about how he'd rather eat Pop Tarts than blackout food, but Miles chose to remain silent.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Another huge thanks goes out to Hollywoodlove09, CandyStars121, JM2788, banneg, RevolutionReader, and IceOnFire7 for being awesome and reviewing last chapter! :D**


	8. Chapter 8

Charlie and Bass had been sitting alone in silence for several dragged out minutes. He had been sitting trapped in his thoughts while she bit down on her bottom lip and glanced over at him every minute or two until finally she could no longer keep the question weighing on her mind from escaping her lips. "So what was it like in your dream world?"

He glanced up at her, half-glaring in her direction, as he asked, "What exactly are you looking for with that question, Charlotte?"

She glared back at him, refusing to let him intimidate her into dropping the subject. Obviously he wasn't as annoyed with her as he liked to pretend if he had dreamed that they were living together, even if it was just because she was the least repulsive option around.

"I want to know what you thought happened," she insisted.

"It's not like it was just a few days to me," he told her gruffly. "It's like a whole alternate set of memories that I'm not going to sit around and describe to you."

"Fine. Then tell me about one day," she persisted. "Tell me what happened the last day before you woke up and I'll stop asking you."

He considered for a moment and Charlie had become convinced that he wasn't going to tell her anything by the time that he finally opened his mouth, with his gaze studying the bark on a nearby tree rather than looking over at her, as he told her, "It was my birthday and I woke up to the smell of your failed attempt at breakfast trying to burn the whole building down while you were completely oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong. You were too busy dancing around, picking out clothes, and you wondered why I was getting up to go try to prevent a fire."

Curiosity took over then and Charlie already felt the need to interrupt as she asked, "Did I dress different?"

Her bets were that in an electrical world in his mind she probably wore something different, but she wasn't certain she wanted to know what his fantasy world had her dressed in. Still, she had to ask.

"Not really. Mostly your clothes were just a hell of a lot cleaner," he responded. He explained their breakfast situation, mostly skimming over the parts that she already knew about, before he told her, "And we're just going to skip straight to showing up at the completely obvious surprise party-"

"Why?" She interrupted, suddenly intrigued by what he might be trying to leave out. If he was already explaining that much, then what could he possibly be trying to dodge telling her about?

He looked up to find that she was wearing one of her most stubborn expressions, so he looked her dead in the eyes and responded, "Because I'm not explaining how shower sex works to you."

He had to give her credit. She didn't even flinch at that, at least not that he could notice.

* * *

Charlie was surprised when she found out about all of the people who were alive and well in his dream and her heart wrenched at the mention of Danny and her father and Nora, who Bass insisted he had always liked better with Miles anyways. She also couldn't help but notice the mention that Emma was alive in the world and so was Duncan, who had apparently attended his imaginary birthday party, despite his comment the day before about how it being her that he was in the dream with meant nothing and that it probably would have been Duncan he was with if they'd been in New Vegas when he had been taken over.

"...And Connor somehow psychically figured out that you were pregnant, even though you hadn't told anyone."

"Hold on a second. I was _pregnant_?" For someone who had been doing such a good job at not reacting or letting her surprise show, that sure got to her.

"Is it really that hard to believe that, in a world where raising a kid or even giving birth to one isn't a huge risk, I'd want another one?" He muttered out defensively.

"I guess not," she responded, although her words didn't come out sounding overly convincing.

He moved to brush some dirt off of the knees of his jeans, as if that section somehow bothered him more than any of the other dirt on him, then commented, "And that was basically it other than my sister bugging me some more about proposing while you were off with Danny. And then I woke up."

He rose to his feet, as if getting up would somehow end the conversation and erase it from having happened, but she remained seated on her over-sized rock and after a long silence finally commented, "I probably wouldn't have wanted to wake up either."

He glanced over at her, but her features were guarded as she too rose to her feet to go back to the wagon before he had the chance to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

Did she just want a world without a blackout or one with rest of her family back? Had she meant that she would want to live in a dream world that the nanites had constructed for her specifically? Or just _maybe_ did she mean that she wouldn't have minded living in his?

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Another gigantic thanks goes out to IceonFire7, banneg, and ceryssiltren for reviewing last chapter! :D**


	9. Chapter 9

This whole trip was a stupid idea. Bass knew that and yet he had still let Miles talk him into it. Now, he was stuck on this damn wagon with Rachel peering over her shoulder to make sure that he wasn't trying to make some kind of move on her daughter while every second it sank in more and more just how pointless this whole idea was.

They weren't going to find Connor. He'd been gone for weeks and they didn't have the slightest hint of where he could be. They didn't even have a damn picture to show people. What were they supposed to do? Go around asking people if they'd seen a curly-haired guy around his age? Because that would yield accurate results.

Besides, even if they found him, there was no guarantee that he would come back with them. Who was he kidding? Odds were that he wouldn't after the way that they had left things.

This was such a waste of time.

* * *

Bass had gone back to staring off into the distance, trapped in his own thoughts in a way that was more than a little concerning, when they stopped the wagon for the night.

"Bass!" Miles tried again as he waved a hand in front of his face. "_Bass!_"

Nothing.

Miles let out a sigh and gave up on trying to get him to snap out of it for the moment and instead went to go help Rachel set up camp for the night.

Charlie considered following him, but instead she got up from her seat to move closer and stare into his eyes. She moved a little to the side, but he still didn't react. His eyes remained as unresponsive as if he were asleep with them open.

"Monroe," she tried.

Still nothing. That wasn't that surprising though when he hadn't showed any signs of hearing Miles.

Then again, she apparently was someone close to or just as important to him in the world that the nanites had thrown him in. In that world, she had a whole different kind of power and maybe, just maybe, she could use that to get through to him and make him stop giving her the vacant stare that was making him more and more uncomfortable.

She shifted closer to him a little, then peeked over to find that Miles and her mother were both still looking the other way. She moved a little closer and brushed her lips against his. The whole thing lasted less than a second, yet she still had to whip her head over to check that her family still wasn't looking.

By the time she turned to look back at him, his eyes had come back into focus and he was looking at her in confusion.

"Why did you do that?" He asked her.

"Do what?"

He could tell that she was going for a blank expression, but the fact that her eyes were still focused over on her uncle instead of on him was not helping her case.

"You just kissed me," he pointed out bluntly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she insisted.

Before he had the chance to argue with her act, she was already off of the wagon and heading away from her.

Unbelievable. He wasn't that crazy.

* * *

Charlie frowned when she rolled over once again, only to find Monroe staring over at her. Because that was going to help her sleep.

It was so much easier trying to pretend that you weren't having problems sleeping when everyone else was asleep. He apparently couldn't sleep either though and now she found herself spending more and more time stuck in an uncomfortable position while trying to talk herself out of moving, until finally she couldn't take it any longer and had to readjust.

"You know, I'd probably be asleep by now if you weren't staring at me," she grumbled out, even though she wasn't entirely convinced that it was true. Maybe she would stand a better chance, but it wasn't like it would be the miracle cure.

Bass was struck by the similarity in her words to what she had said the first night that she had stayed at his place in his dream version of things. He hadn't been able to believe that she was still thrashing around trying to get comfy, so he had settled on watching her and asking if she was done yet. She had just gotten indignant and insisted that she wouldn't be having any problems if he wasn't watching her like some kind of creep waiting for her to fall asleep. Of course, that had ended in laughter and snuggling and this just ended in rolling over and both of them ignoring the other while he pretended that there wasn't a rock digging into his thigh.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! Another huge thanks goes out to banneg, Hollywoodlove09, LemonSupreme, Ceryssiltren, and alindy for reviewing last chapter! :D**


	10. Chapter 10

Charlie couldn't sleep. Again. At least when they had been fighting, she had been able to use up enough of her energy to get an almost reasonable number of hours of sleep, but riding on a wagon all day proved to be only a further hindrance to her sleep schedule. She hated the fact that she needed a fight to exhaust her into sleeping. She hated that this was her life now.

She knew that Miles drank to get to sleep sometimes and that idea was looking more and more appealing, but she didn't want to need alcohol to function. She just wanted all of this to fix itself. She wanted to be able to close her eyes for more than five minutes without having to picture Jason covered in blood. She was going to be sick if she kept thinking about the bullet-hole that she had put in him.

Oh, God. She needed a distraction. She needed it badly.

She sat up and debated stealing Miles' whiskey out of his bag when she found that Monroe was already sitting up, drinking from his own flask. So they were in the same boat again. Who would have thought that she would end up having anything in common with him?

"What's your excuse tonight?" He muttered. "I wasn't even looking at you this time."

Instead of answering his question, she turned it around on him, "What's your excuse? Can't sleep without some imaginary bed?" Her words came out sounding bitter, but maybe that was just because she was annoyed by him asking her.

"That's part of it," he admitted. "Going back to sleeping outside isn't exactly my first choice."

She didn't bother asking what the other part was. She knew he was avoiding his problems as much as she was avoiding her own. And if they really were that similar, then the silence of night only made the thoughts he was trying to block out even angrier.

There was a brief silence before she asked, "We lived together, right?"

His voice came out annoyed as he pointed out, "I already told you that."

He took another swig out of his flask as she wrapped her arms loosely around her knees.

"You're used to sleeping in a bed with me."

This time it wasn't a question. She wasn't looking for an answer.

"There's no reason we both shouldn't get to sleep."

Now he was the one with questions as he arched a brow at her.

"I can't make a bed appear, but I could sleep over there."

Nothing.

"Or at least try to."

He would have thought for sure it was a joke if it weren't for the look on her face. She looked dead serious. Even then, he still wasn't entirely convinced.

He took one last chug from his flask, then closed the top.

"Whatever."

She still wasn't moving. If she was expecting him to ask her, then she had another thing coming.

He tossed his flask aside and moved back onto the ground. She debated ignoring him and lying back down in her own spot, but he wasn't the only one she had offered for. She probably wouldn't have offered if it was just for him.

She wanted to distract herself. She wanted to find a miracle cure to help herself sleep. Hell, she was willing to give anything a chance at this point.

Bass was surprised when she came over and joined him. She lay so close that they were nearly touching, while she faced the opposite direction. He was confused by what she was doing and by the fact that she seemed to be pissed at him after she had been the one who had offered.

Several seconds passed in silence as he lay perfectly still before finally she asked, "How did we usually sleep?"

He wished that this was still the dream world and that he could just cuddle up to her and have all of his problems disappear, but this wasn't that Charlie. That Charlie didn't exist.

"I don't know if you-" He tried.

"Please, just..." She trailed off.

He was only more confused as he hesitantly shifted a little closer and wrapped one arm loosely around her.

He waited a second. And then another, but she wasn't moving away or arguing.

He shifted a little closer and made himself comfy and waited to see if she would complain or leave, but she stayed eerily still so finally he closed his eyes.

Charlie struggled to pretend that he was someone else or that this was his dream world or that they were in any other situation than broken ex-General Monroe being the one holding her.

She was human. She was upset. That was it. It didn't matter that he was the one holding her. She just needed some kind of comfort. Something to assure her that she would make it through the night.

How the hell had it come to this?

* * *

Bass stirred awake the next morning and felt the tickle of hair against his face. Instead of pulling away from the sensation, he moved closer and brushed his lips against her skin.

"Good morning, beautiful," he murmured in between kisses.

Charlie felt Monroe's stubble brush along her flesh as his lips moved along her cheek. That wasn't the only thing she felt. A certain part of his anatomy was much more awake than he was.

"Um, Bass."

She hadn't even realized she was calling him it instead of Monroe until the word had already left her lips. That wasn't her biggest concern at the moment anyways and they were in a strangely intimate situation for her to want to refer to him as Monroe.

Her voice jolted him awake as his eyes flew open and the words 'I love you' died on his lips. Dammit, he'd been dreaming about the stupid dream world again. He quickly pulled away and cleared his throat as he moved the blanket to cover himself more.

"Sorry."

She turned and sat up and then was hit with an especially inconvenient thought.

"The nanites are everywhere, right?" She asked. "So does that mean that you've seen what I really look like naked or was it just what you want me to look like?"

"You're not helping, Charlie," he grunted out.

"It's a serious question," she insisted. "You have memories of having sex with me and I don't even know if they're just a fantasy or if the nanites made it accurate."

She was at a disadvantage in this. For all she knew, he knew exactly what she was like in bed and exactly what she looked like naked. She wasn't sure which option was worse: having him really know what she looked like or having him have a memory of the idealized version of what she was like.

"I don't know," he insisted. "And unless you're offering a show and tell, then I guess we aren't finding out. So can we just stop talking about you naked so that I can get rid of this before they wake up?"

She held back a laugh at that and let her voice come out sounding more irritated than she really was. "Fine."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! :)**


	11. Chapter 11

There must be something wrong with her. Something more than she had realized before. That had to be the only explanation for what she was about to do. She was completely out of her mind.

Bass looked up in surprise when Charlie once again tracked him down. Did she really have to show off her tracking skills every chance she got? Couldn't she just give him ten minutes on his own? She hadn't said a word to him all day, since that morning's incident that she had found so damn hilarious, but now as soon as he wanted a moment to himself there she was again. It was like she was doing it on purpose.

"What do you want?" He asked her coldly.

"That annoyed act would work a lot better if we didn't both know that you have a thing for me," she pointed out.

He couldn't believe the nerve on her as he shook his head. "I don't have a thing for you. You were just the piece of meat they used to keep me distracted."

"You thought I was pregnant," Charlie countered.

"I guess they chose the body they thought would keep me interested, but might also make a decent mom," he muttered. "Otherwise it definitely would have been Duncan. You don't exactly scream sex appeal, Bambi."

She frowned. What was the point of him denying things after he had already told her about them?

"So I was just the piece of meat to keep you interested, but I had no sex appeal?" She challenged. "You do realize you're contradicting yourself again, right?"

"What do you want, Charlie?" Bass growled out. "Are you looking for an excuse to make me the bad guy for getting brainwashed? Or are you expecting me to play boyfriend like we live in happy dreamland? Because I'm not interested in either. So why don't you run on back to your mom and you two can bond over how horrible I am for being possessed by her fucking airborne robots."

"Actually, she snuck off with Miles," she informed him. "So I'd really rather not go find her right now."

"Well then go sit by yourself. Go for a walk. I don't care," he grumbled. "Just leave me alone if all you're going to do is sit there and bug me."

She didn't move, but she didn't say anything either. He decided to ignore her as he leaned with his head back against the trunk of a tree and closed his eyes. He was sure he wasn't really going to fall asleep, but maybe if he pretended to, then she'd take a hint and go away.

A few seconds passed in silence before he heard a faint rustling. He waited a moment, then peeked one eye open to check if she was gone. Both eyes flew open when he found that she was still there, but her shirt was lying on the ground.

She'd captured his attention now.

She wasn't saying anything or looking for another shirt or even covering herself up. She was just standing there looking at him. Was she out of her freaking mind? Or was he?

"What are you doing?" He asked.

Now she looked a little unsure of herself.

"Show and tell," she told him.

"_What?_"

One of them was definitely out of their mind. It was just a matter of which one. Or maybe they both were.

"I want to even the playing field," Charlie insisted.

This was about the questions she'd been asking him this morning, wasn't it?

"You don't know if I've really seen you naked or not, so you figured why not take your shirt off?" He questioned. "Wouldn't it make more sense to get me to take my clothes off?"

She didn't even flinch.

He let out a laugh. "You want to have sex to find out if it's the same as in my dream?"

She did not look impressed that she was being laughed at. "I don't want you being the only one with an idea of what it would be like."

He let out another laugh. "So, what? You just sleep with any guy who considers what you might be like in bed?"

Now she was getting annoyed.

"Never mind," she grumbled as she reached down to grab her shirt. She wouldn't meet his eyes as she added, "This was a stupid idea."

"Charlie, hold on."

He let his head fall back hard against the trunk of the tree supporting him as she turned back around and hesitated with her shirt halfway on. When he didn't say anything, she pulled it back down the rest of the way and smoothed it out instead of looking at him.

The fact that she had stopped instead of storming off made him wonder if there was something more to this than just trying to keep him from having the upper hand.

"What?" She hissed out when he didn't say anything else.

He wavered for a moment before he slowly rose to his feet. How the hell had he wound up in a situation where he was about to strip for Miles' niece?

"You want to make yourself feel better?" He questioned in an exasperated tone. "Fine."

Charlie watched in surprise as he pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it aside. For someone who had found it so hilarious when she had suggested that they even the playing field, he sure wasn't even hesitating as he unbuckled his belt.

Her first reaction when the last of his clothes came off was to look away. A reaction that was stupid, considering she was the one whose bright idea this had been. He had just stripped because she didn't like being at a disadvantage to him and his memories of her without clothes on. She was amazed that he didn't start laughing again as she felt the urge to laugh at herself to try to recover from the embarrassment.

Instead she turned to look back at him and reassured herself that she was supposed to be looking, that was the whole point, as she took in the sight of him. He was standing there completely unabashed as she felt her cheeks begin to burn.

"Happy?" He questioned.

Clearly he did not think that she was still planning on going through with her original plan. He probably didn't think that she had _ever_ really been planning to go through with it. And could she really blame him? She was flustered enough just from this as she struggled to keep her eyes from settling on any one part of his body for too long.

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**A/N: Please read and review! Apparently I forgot that I've had this chapter written since I posted the last one, so sorry for the unnecessarily long wait. Hopefully the chapter was worth it... Also, another great big thanks goes out to LemonSupreme, meenajon, banneg, and the anonymous guest for being awesome and reviewing last chapter! :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: This chapter is pretty much pure smut. So if that's not something you're interested in, then you're probably going to want to skip this chapter.**

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A look of determination crossed Charlie's features as she kicked her boots off, one after the other, her feet landing on the soft grass.

Bass arched a brow at her. Whether it was in surprise or challenge, she was just getting started.

Next went her belt, falling to the ground with a jangle, then her shirt was off again. Bass was soaking it all in from the look of determination on her face, to the lighter patches of skin where the sun couldn't reach her flesh as easily as that of her tanned arms, down to the way her hips wriggled as she shimmied out of her jeans.

She stood up straight, now in just bra and underwear, and her eyes locked with his as she reached behind her to unhook her bra. That too fell to the ground and moments later her panties fell around her ankles. She stepped out of them and gave him an expectant look.

There were subtle differences, like the tan lines and a faint scar he wondered the cause of, but for the most part she was as he remembered. He stirred a little at the sight of her.

Charlie was really starting to question her judgement as Monroe's eyes hungrily raked over her form. Part of her really wanted this and that was terrifying. She was having a hard time remembering what she had told herself her motives were.

He wasn't moving. He was just standing there, waiting for her to make the first move. She wasn't sure if he was trying not to spook her or if he was expecting her to back out now.

Either way, that wasn't going to happen.

Charlie closed the distance and then pounced on him. Before he entirely realized what was happening, he was on the ground and she was on top of him with her tongue in his mouth. All earlier signs of shyness had completely dissipated and he was starting to think that maybe this was about more than just trying to even the playing field for her.

She was wasting no time, so he stopped hesitating and let his hands explore, gliding over her soft skin, feeling the lean muscles just beneath, as he tried to memorize the feel of her body and searched for every subtle difference. Apparently, he still was taking more time than she would like, since Charlie reached a hand down to position him at her already dripping entrance.

She slowly sunk down into him, inch by inch, and gave herself a moment to adjust to his girth before she began to slowly move up and down on top of him, steadying herself with a palm on his chest. It wasn't long before she was already picking up the pace and breathing heavily.

Some sort of branch or rock was digging into Bass's back and at first he was able to ignore it, but eventually it was getting to be too much. He wrapped his arms tight, one around her waist and one around her back, so that he could take her with him as he sat up.

Charlie didn't seem at all perturbed as she took advantage of the new position to wrap both legs around his waist. Her heels were digging into his ass as her ragged breaths quickly turned into full blown panting and moaning. Her hair was falling in his face, getting in his eyes and mouth and tickling him with every thrust as she ground on top of him desperately.

He tried to ignore it at first. But when he practically choked on a strand, Bass drew the line and grunted out, "Hair."

She took the hint and left one arm wrapped around his neck while the other shoved her hair back out of her face, most of it landing behind her shoulders. He liked this view a hell of a lot better as an apologetic smile momentarily flashed across her features.

Charlie's hand landed back on his shoulder to steady herself and her eyes fell shut as she concentrated on the task at hand. She was biting down on her bottom lip so hard that it was starting to lose colour as she began to rock her hips back and forth, desperately trying to increase the friction.

Bass was absolutely mesmerized by her, so much so that he lost focus and she let out a little whine to notify him she was not pleased that he was slowing down. He sped up again and as she arched her back the last few strands fell over her shoulder.

Monroe's mouth moved to her neck, gliding down to her pulse point. Sure, that was nice, but it wasn't what she needed. Charlie didn't want long and drawn out. She didn't want sweet and slow. She wanted to get off now. All the sexual tension and lingering looks that had been building up for months were enough teasing. She wanted the pay off and she wanted it now.

He kept getting distracted just when she felt herself getting close and she was not going to stand for it any longer. She didn't care if this wasn't what he remembered. Hell, she didn't care if it was exactly what he remembered. She cared about one thing and one thing only.

Her heels were really digging in now. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders and back as her feet shifted and kicked at him while she adjusted so that her ankles were locked over each other behind him. She clearly was not playing around anymore.

Bass brought his lips to hers in a hungry kiss. His tongue slid past her lips and he began to lower her to the ground. One hand moved to her thigh, pulling her leg up to rest over his hip as her back hit the ground. Her breath hitched and he smiled triumphantly against her lips as his hand slid down between her legs.

Charlie was always on top where she could be in charge as much as she liked. It was practically a rule of hers at this point. She would have complained or tried to roll them over if it weren't for the fact that now he had the exact right angle to give her maximum pleasure as he thrust into her and the pattern he was tracing over her clit was enough to ensure that she had no arguments.

"Don't stop," she told him breathily as she squirmed and writhed and bucked up against him.

This time he wasn't hesitating or slowing down. His eyes were locked on hers and she was relieved that she was already so flushed he probably couldn't tell that her cheeks were burning at him seeing her like this. No, not just seeing her like this. He had gotten her to this point and now she was like putty in his hands and there was no way she was going to hold on for much longer.

Before she has wanted nothing more than sweet release, but now with his hot gaze boring into her and the lust in his eyes she found herself sucking in air and desperately holding out as long as she could.

Apparently, he could tell she was fighting it, since he muttered out, "Now's really not the time to be stubborn."

She was squirming beneath him, clearly on the brink, as she grabbed his face in one hand and brought her lips back up to him again to shut him up.

Charlie stopped kissing him back all at once. Her body tensed around him and for a moment her mouth went wide open, then she was biting down on his lip hard enough that he was sure she must have drawn blood. The hand that had been on his cheek before moved and knotted into his hair, pulling hard enough that his neck ended up at not the most pleasant of angles. Her legs were like a vice around him and all the while she was still bucking against him, completely erratically, as her back arched and fell back against the ground seemingly at random.

She finally eased her hold on him and her movements became slower and more methodical as her head fell back against the grass and she let out a contented sigh. There was blood on her lip from where she had bit down on his and when she caught her breath, her tongue darted out to wipe it clean. Fuck.

A small smile formed on her lips as she pointed out, "Your turn."

Her movements picked up a little again as her hands moved to his hips and her eyes met his.

Bass was breathing hard as he brought a hand to her leg and pulled up at it. She responded immediately by wrapping her leg higher around him. That was nice. Okay it was definitely more than nice, but it was only making the warning he was trying to give her more urgent.

"Legs," he panted out stupidly.

Charlie shot him a look of confusion, looking for more explanation, and then she finally realized that all of his concentration was elsewhere and he wasn't capable of giving her clearer instructions.

She loosened her legs, letting one of them fall off of him altogether, and hoped that was what he had been going for. That got cleared up pretty quickly though as he pulled out of her before he lost all control and blew his load in hot spurts that mostly landed on the ground, but also got her thigh.

He let out an exhausted breath as he fell back onto the ground. She watched his chest rising and falling heavily for a moment before she diverted her attention to cleaning herself up.

Bass was surprised when she got up from the ground and began to get dressed while he was still trying to catch his breath.

"Well," he commented. "Getting up immediately after isn't something you usually do."

Charlie turned to face him as she asked, "What? It's not up to your usual standard?" Her tone was unapologetic as she smiled and told him, "Sorry to disappoint you."

It had been different than being with the Charlie of his dream world, but then again he and Charlie had a different history and dynamic than they had in the dream world. Being with this Charlie hadn't been disappointing though. That was for sure. It wasn't perfect, not like it had been in the nanite world. That had felt real, but this somehow had felt even realer.

"I'm not disappointed," he responded as he watched her pull one of her pant legs back on. "Fucking in the woods to settle something is different than what we were up to as a couple." He regretted that wording immediately, but hoped she didn't think anything of it. "That doesn't make it worse though."

She was shaking off the grass that had gotten stuck to her shirt as she told him, "Well, I don't know about you, but I got what I wanted out of it."

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**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to LemonSupreme, Cherlaine, banneg, and the anonymous guest for being awesome and reviewing last chapter. :)**


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